September 20 Flu Update
150,000+ fowl culled in China, mostly ducks.Wisely, a bird flu exercise is planned in Hong Kong.
A cull was held in Nigeria recently.
In Hawaii, US military doctors have new equipment that they hope will fight a pandemic.
Tests of an injectable anti-viral are less than promising.
Vets in Indonesia are looking for an animal health law.
Contrary to common thought, Influenza A travels during the summer and it not dormant.
Company wins award for its non-egg-based vaccine technology.
They are checking waterfowl for bird flu in Helena, MT.
The Sanofi vaccine is showing promise.
In Salt Lake City there were flu exercises done.
posted by Orange @ 9:13 PM
1 Comments:
Orange;
No comments about China today. They will declare victory after whacking the 150,000 domestic birds, hunker down in their silence, and well, declare victory. (at least until the next time).
Your article about the military doctors in Hawaii, who are linking up with the Marshall Islands, is quite fascinating. What’s so important about Marshall Islands, the military and the bird flu, you ask ? Well, without revealing too much, look at your world map – the islands there are located very near- guess where – Indonesia and China and is one of our H5N1 pandemic “canary” warning systems so-to-speak. We provide comprehensive aid to the Marshall Islands, in return for US military use of the US Army’s Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Test Site on the Kwajalein Atoll. That being said, if a pandemic emerges in the Indochina/Asian area, no doubt our military medical teams in Honolulu will be one the first to hear about it, confirm it, and pull the national warning trigger.
Probably because of the heavy military influence, Hawaii’s native islanders are very well prepared for a pandemic. (so my nephew Felix, who lives there, reports). My sister Elke, has said the US Native American tribes are equally well prepared. Now, if we can just the average middle-class affluent Caucasian in the US (which is probably about 100 million people outside of Utah) to prepare for any kind of emergency at all, beyond twenty four hours – this will be a major national achievement.
I really got a kick out of your Jakarta Post article, which describes the apparent funding problem of their national health insurance program for the low-income members of Indonesia. Reports of clinics, hospitals, and physicians not being paid, resulting in the problem of shuffling many destitute influenza infected patients to other medical facilities, have been in the news for many months. Corruption, ineptness and incompetence in Indonesia is rampant, and will never be resolved until President Yudhoyono and Supari are placed in a trashcan and a new government is installed.
Finally, your Science Daily article got me wondering – since influenza A viruses migrate globally and mix with other viral strains in other hemispheres, during our summer months, does this mean we are in for one nasty flu winter season this year ? Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, for example, really got hit hard this summer. Even their horses got nailed good and ended up at the glue factories.
Gee, if a person could afford to retire and just keep moving from continent to continent during alternating flu seasons, he might just avoid getting the flu at all, and not require a vaccine shot.
It’s something to think about – Wulfgang on a sailboat, sailing the open seas and reading about the latest epidemiological and zoonotic disease outbreaks. Like the Ebola virus outbreak in the Congo right now. That is a very, very, bad place to be right now.
Wulfgang
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